- [Announcer] Wheelan-Pressly Funeral Home and Crematory, a proud supporter of WQPT, has been serving quad city families since 1889.

They now have livestream capabilities for viewing your loved one's funeral or memorial service.

- The Iowa Legislative session is over.

What was accomplished?

And Ballet Quad Cities is finally getting back on the stage in the cities.

(upbeat music) It really is an exciting time right now, as more venues are opening their stages as the COVID pandemic eases in the cities.

Laura Adams will tell us about some great events just ahead.

Our musician today has a concert that's planned for you.

And we'll talk with the artistic director of ballet quad cities about surviving the pandemic and the great plans they have for the weeks ahead.

But first the end of the Iowa legislative session.

It will be marked by budget and tax changes, social issues, and of course the pandemic.

We talked with Republican state Senator Chris Cournoyer about what was accomplished and what wasn't.

Senator, one of the last things that happened as far as the governor signing was the mask mandate and kind of the prohibition for local and for schools to have it.

Why was it so important to do it so quickly?

Because a lot of the school districts thought, couldn't we have just finished the school year as the policy now stands?

- Well, I think that was the goal.

You know, we were talking about mask mandates.

We were hearing a lot from parents who were interested in you know, getting at least some comfort or some guidance on what to expect for the next school year.

But as we were discussing it, and as the legislation came through, you know, in the Senate, we had passed the bill that would it be effective on July 1st, the house amended it to be effective immediately.

And then the governor decided, you know while it's on my desk, I'm gonna go ahead and sign it.

And boy, I mean, I had people that were just contacting me and that had tears of joy because they were just so glad to finally get their children out of the mask to be able to go to school.

And you know, it's not just the lifting of the mandate.

It's giving the parents the choice of whether or not to send their students, their children to school with masks on.

So I think kids are just happy to have the choice now.

- But you're on a local school board, Pleasant Valley.

I mean you would've liked to have made your own decision as far as your own school board.

I mean, is it a bit of a state overreach into what's kind of a local issue?

- Well, yeah, and I was on a school board and I think that it is important to make sure that local decisions are made by these locally elected boards and, you know city councils and county supervisors, you know but in this case, I think there's no better example of local control than letting parents decide for themselves whether or not to send their kids to school with masks on.

So I think it is the ultimate local control to let the parents put the control in the parent's hands.

- As you said, I mean, I was in such, I won't say great, but very good fiscal position getting through this pandemic.

And you were talking to me a little bit earlier that it kind of makes your job a little bit easier.

Tell me about what you see as the fiscal plan for the state of Iowa going forward as we come out of the pandemic, as tax revenues increase, and spending is perhaps changed, and not so pandemic centric.

- Sure.

So, you know, we had the biggest tax cut in Iowa history in 2017 and that resulted in back-to-back years with over $300 million surpluses.

And so to me and my colleagues in Des Moines, that means that there's still room for tax cuts.

So we had a massive tax package that went through the chambers and they had already been signed by the governor.

And that's allowed us to look at other areas where we could cut taxes.

So some examples are that we were able to get rid of the triggers that would initiate individual income tax.

That'll help not only individuals but families and small businesses.

We were able to phase out the inheritance tax over four years, which will help people who want to give away not only their assets, but their businesses and or property to a next generation or to someone that's not necessarily related to them, so that they don't get burdened with the capital gains and the taxes associated with inheriting that.

And you really be able to, you know invest in businesses to kind of invest in themselves to update technology.

You know, some of those, you know, manufacturing 4.0 to help our smaller and mid-size manufacturers in the state invest in their equipment so that they can continue to keep up with the technology and continue to supply those great family supporting jobs.

So, you know, we did some great things with childcare this year in terms of tax credits and incentives for businesses to provide high quality accessible childcare for their employees.

We've also done a lot for housing this year and especially cleaning up dilapidated properties.

So I think that, you know, ending up with a surplus and being in a good fiscal financial shape, and that's because of really disciplined, conservative budgeting over the last four years, has allowed us to implement some of these programs that we have been desperately needing in the state of Iowa.

- One area that has been of concern, of course across the state of Iowa, is how the state handles, provides and pays for mental health services.

And it's been a sea change under the Reynolds administration to get it off of the property tax rolls, to be more of a state spent and not necessarily a state centric type of system.

What do you see as the future for mental health issues?

And do you think you've been successful in making it more accessible to more and more people?

- Yeah.

I think what we did this year to get rid of the mental health levy and take the burden of mental health financing off the backs of the property taxpayers was really important.

It was a big goal of our legislative session this year.

Iowa was only one of three states that was paying for mental health out of property taxes and that is not an appropriate use of property tax.

So getting rid of that levy and shifting it over to the general fund so that it's state funded not only gives it sustainable predictable funding but there's also built in increases because we know especially over the last year that mental health issues are only increasing, especially as more people who are having mental health issues are willing to get help that they need and become more aware of the services.

And it starts, you know, really, you know.

In my education budget we dealt a lot with children's mental health.

And I think that if we can continue to identify mental health issues earlier, we're going to save ourselves a lot of pain and and expense later on, if we can be more proactive in treatment and identifying issues earlier in a child's life.

- And that's an excellent point.

It is not only children, but as you know Iowa is such a rural state.

There's so many counties where there's not even necessarily a therapist anywhere nearby.

I mean, how does Iowa hope to improve as you said, accessibility?

- Yeah, well, we're really utilizing, we've got the regional system set up in Iowa right now for the adult mental health.

And then we're utilizing the the existing framework of the area education agencies, the AEAs that already provides services in our schools.

So, you know, we are really blessed in this area to have Vera French, which are school-based counseling services.

Two of my own children benefited from Vera French counselors that provided mental health treatment right there in the school.

So they didn't have to worry about transportation to appointments and taking time out of the day, that might be a barrier to getting the treatment that they needed.

And I really felt like they got the help that they needed early on and kind of very proactive in that treatment.

So I think that utilizing the framework that's already in the schools, you know, AEAs provide hearing services and speech therapy and, you know, all sorts of services.

And this is just one more thing that they can provide.

And we've really given the AEA a lot of flexibility in terms of how they provide training for teachers to identify mental health issues that might be, they might recognize in a student, but we'll also given them the flexibility to use that money for additional services as they identify them in certain areas in certain regions.

So I think that the regions will still have that flexibility that they need to meet the needs of the people in their area, but the money coming from the state I think will be a big help, especially in terms of the increased funding that's gonna be necessary to support all the mental health services.

- As you well know the Republicans control the governor's office.

It controls the state Senate and the state house.

So it's given Republicans a rare opportunity to move forward with some social issues.

And I start with the anti-abortion constitutional amendment.

How important was that to get started?

Because as you know, it's an ongoing process to get approved.

- I wouldn't call it an anti-abortion amendment.

It's simply makes the Iowa constitution neutral on the topic of abortion.

So there was an court case a few years ago where judges somehow found a constitutional right in the Iowa constitution to allow abortions.

And that simply was something that is not in the Iowa constitution.

So what this does, what this amendment does is simply make the Iowa constitution neutral.

And I think what's important about the constitutional amendment process in Iowa is that in order to change the constitution it has to go through two successive, legislative assemblies and then it goes to a vote of the people.

And I think that this is a really important topic.

The topic of abortion and how it should be regulated in the state of Iowa should be put out to a vote of the people.

So we are in the step one of a three phase process and if it passes in the next general assembly, it would go to the Iowans, the 3 million Iowans to determine whether or not they want that language in the Iowa constitution or not.

And I think this issue is important enough that I think we need to leave it up to the 3 million Iowans, not 150 legislators.

- Yeah.

Because you do really underline the fact that if it is a constitutional change, it is a process to do that.

It is not a one-step process as you pointed out.

But there are areas that the Republicans, and you had mentioned this when we were talking back in January about the priorities for the party in this coming session, and you said that you were expecting more pro-police protections and also some increased penalties on those who may take part in a protest.

And perhaps I want to say a crime is committed.

The penalties have been increased thanks to this session of the legislature.

- Yeah.

I actually, you know with my background being a reserve deputy in the Scott county Sheriff's office, I actually floor managed two of the bills on the Senate floor to that were considered back the blue bills.

So supporting the men and women of law enforcement.

And they've certainly had a very challenging year over the last year.

And, you know, I want to be very clear, you know we do not in any way want to stop or inhibit people from peacefully protesting.

I mean, there are certainly if you're passionate about an issue and you want to use your first amendment right to protest peacefully, you are absolutely entitled to do that.

But last year we saw a lot of illegal activity, a lot of rioting, a lot of destruction of property and businesses and, you know, crimes being committed.

And that is just something that we are not going to tolerate in the state of Iowa.

So, you know, and we also saw, you know the defunding of police in the state of in Minneapolis, and what that led to, a spike in violent crimes.

And we're just not going to let that happen.

I mean, a big priority for me when I was running, and I know a big priority for my caucus is safe communities.

And we want to make sure that, you know absolutely people are or should be encouraged to practice their first amendment right to protest when they're passionate about an issue but when it becomes violent and it becomes criminal, than there need to be consequences for that.

And we need to make sure that we are protecting our law enforcement who are protecting us 365 days a year, 24 hours a day.

And, you know, there were issues, there were things in there that, you know, protects them from, you know people shining lasers in their eyes.

You know, people attacking police officers.

There's some privacy protections in there so that their home addresses aren't on public websites where people could look them up and harass their families at home, which was really a top priority for us.

But the qualified immunity protecting them when they're out on the streets and having to make those you know, split-second decisions.

And, you know, it's not protecting bad actors at all but it's protecting officers who are out there doing the best that they can to protect themselves and the lives of innocent people and protecting our communities, making sure that they are protected, you know, at the end of the day.

But we certainly aren't protecting bad actors in any way.

And we also put in there the peace officer bill of rights, which protects them when they are accused of wrongdoing to make sure that their rights are followed through the process.

- This pandemic proved difficult for so many things especially this last election.

Tell me, I mean, it seems like everyone was very proud of how Iowa elections were held and a huge amount of ballots that came in and that people avoided the actual lines of voting.

And yet people think that the Iowa elections went very well.

Do you think the ally Iowa elections went very well?

And if so, why did we have to make changes that limit the length of time that you can vote and whether you can use mail-in ballots?

Why are those changes necessary when we just had a pretty successful November election?

- Yeah, no, I think the elections went very well in Iowa and you know, I'm really proud that there was a record turnout in the last couple of elections that we've had in Iowa and that people throughout the pandemic were able to utilize the absentee ballot request forms.

But I think, you know, with every election we get actually a lot of the ideas for election reform from the state county auditors association, just to make sure that election rules and guidelines across all 99 counties are uniform.

Make sure, you know, if a vote counts in one county then it should count in another county, just to make sure there's consistency, especially with recounts.

And there was an issue last year with three county auditors that were sending out absentee ballot request with pre-populating identifiable information.

And the point of an absentee ballot and voter ID is that you want to make sure that the person that is requesting that ballot is actually who they say they are.

So, you know, auditors that are sending out pre-populated absentee ballot request doesn't really secure that ballot, or help us make sure that the person who's sending it back in is who they say it is.

Just making sure that auditors are following the rules even if they don't agree with them and making sure that every legal vote counts.

So we want to make sure that it's easy to vote and hard to cheat.

And, you know, I think three weeks, you know, 21 days to cast a ballot is, is plenty of time to request a ballot.

If you want to vote by mail you can go in and vote early in person or you can vote during an 11 hour period on election day.

And I think that's a lot of time to get your ballots in and, you know people get sick of listening to all the ads and especially all the negativity.

And you certainly don't want to cast your vote too early and then have something information come out that makes you regret the vote.

And you know, when it's too late and you can't, you know go back and change your vote once it's done.

So I think, I think what we've done is really done a lot for the integrity of our elections, making sure that all legal votes count and making sure that it's very hard to cheat.

But I think elections have gone very well.

And I hope to see that our turnout continues to increase.

And because it just means that our citizens are engaged and they're paying attention.

That's good.

- Iowa state Senator Chris Cournoyer, Republican from Le Claire.

In a moment Ballet Quad Cities, which is ready to move past the pandemic, but also found out a thing or two from the Corona virus impact.

But first you can't head into the month of June without some great ideas from Laura Adams when you make your plans to go out and about.

(funky electronic music) - [Laura] This is out and about through June 3rd.

The free Illinois Elks children's orthopedic clinic takes place May 18th from 2:30 to 4:30 at ORA Orthopedics in Moline.

Beehive, the sixties musical is a fun flashback to the fabulous females who left their mark on 1960s pop music, opening at Circa 21.

While the newly restored Forest Grove School No.

5 is now open for tours Saturdays through October 30th.

The third annual earth day fairs coming to the Freight House Farmer's Market the 22nd from nine to two, or shop with hops where you can sip sample and shop your way through Le Claire Iowa, starting at three on May 22nd.

Tipton Iowa hosts The Good Makers Market May 28th and 29th featuring the best hand picked vendors in the Midwest at the Cedar County fairgrounds.

Plus Ballet Quad Cities and the Quad City Symphony Orchestras Trio will headline a performance at the Adler Theater May 29th at eight.

Fleet feet Davenport brings runners to the TBK bank sports complex on the 31st at seven for a variety of races.

Be sure to register and run Memorial Day weekend.

Stolen Set Improv at the Spotlight Theater is a family friendly improv show happening the 22nd at seven, while comedy returns to the Black Box Theater on the 22nd at 7:30 with improvisation from It's Your Fault and Guys in Ties.

For more information, visit wqpt.org.

- Thank you, Laura.

Musicians are getting ready to get back on the stage.

Mo Carter will be at the Mississippi River Distillery performing as a duet.

Now she's going to be alone, but she's more than 30 weeks along in her pregnancy.

She's ready to perform nonetheless.

We caught up with her months ago at the Black Box Theater in Moline, where she performed one of her originals.

Here's Mo Carter with Crumbled.

(soft solo guitar music) - ♪ Your brilliance is everywhere ♪ ♪ Constant reminder ♪ ♪ As it's always on display ♪ ♪ Thinking about you, honey ♪ ♪ I could be simply better ♪ ♪ But that's not the case for me ♪ ♪ So I crumble just like you knew I would ♪ ♪ I crumble ♪ ♪ So beautifully ♪ ♪ And I crumble ♪ ♪ Into the sea ♪ ♪ And I crumble, oh oh ♪ (soft solo guitar music) ♪ Its so easy, oh ♪ ♪ Every time, not even trying ♪ ♪ Create a beautiful ride ♪ ♪ If I had a sliver of what you possess ♪ ♪ Would I be easier for me ♪ ♪ To confess that I crumble ♪ ♪ Oh, just like you knew I would ♪ ♪ And I crumble ♪ ♪ Oh, so silently ♪ ♪ And I crumble ♪ ♪ Oh, into the sea ♪ ♪ And I crumble, oh ♪ ♪ I'm twisting every turn ♪ ♪ I need your shadow ♪ ♪ With nothing left, I guess I'll accept ♪ ♪ That ill continue to be nothing better ♪ ♪ Only me ♪ ♪ Nothing better ♪ ♪ Only me, oh ♪ ♪ Nothing better ♪ ♪ Only me, oh ♪ ♪ And I crumble ♪ ♪ Oh just like like you knew I would ♪ ♪ And I crumble ♪ ♪ Oh, so foolishly ♪ ♪ And I crumble ♪ ♪ Oh, into the sea ♪ ♪ And I crumble ♪ ♪ Oooh ♪ - That's Mo Carter with Crumbled.

She's performing at the Mississippi River Distillery Saturday, June 5th at five.

Performers like Mo Carter and countless others have been kept off the stage and away from audiences due to COVID-19, but they're coming back.

Well, it's also true for Ballet Quad Cities, but they found amazing ways to adapt.

And some of those ideas can still be used going forward.

We talked with the artistic director Courtney Lyon about the ballet's lessons from the pandemic and its performances for the summer.

So you get to return to the stage of the Adler Theater.

That is really exciting.

- It is, we are so excited to get back up there.

- So tell me, what's the plan?

- The plan is we're just going to bring the highlights of our season, some of the favorite things we've done this year and put it on the Adler stage to celebrate being back on that beautiful stage, to be back in a traditional theater and return to our audiences at the Adler.

- Yeah, and that's a big deal.

I mean, just getting back indoors, tell me what that is because man, I think we all took it for granted and now it seems so monumental.

- Yes, yes.

We've spent the past year in alternative spaces.

We were fortunate enough to find a great venue in The Outing Club in Davenport.

Were able to build a stage outdoors for several performances and then moved into their Grant Ballroom for some of the, when the weather turned of course we didn't want to dance outside, but now it is the end of May.

Things are looking up.

The Adler theater wants to make sure the arts get back up on stage and that our community gets connected to them.

So we're going to be back up on that big 'ol stage.

- I want to talk more about what you're going to do in the future, but can I look back for just a moment because every group had to find a way to survive this pandemic and you guys found not only as you said, The Outing Club, the ability to perform on stage outdoors in front of groups but you found other ways to connect with your audience and get the arts out.

And that stuff's not going to be forgotten.

I'd assume there's some things that you learned in the last year that you guys plan on using in the coming year.

- Well, I should hope so if we don't learn, you know if we don't learn from this year.

Oh boy.

(laughing) Yes.

I mean, I for one learned how truly valuable what we do is.

I don't always get a chance to interact with the audiences as much.

You know, for example let's say we're at the Adler theater, it's a big audience.

The dancers are on stage, a traditional show.

I don't always get to interact with every single audience member that's there but at The Outing Club, because the audiences were smaller I really got to be a part of it.

So I got to see and feel their immediate reactions to what we were doing.

And after a performance, I mean, sometimes people would be in tears and not that we were doing sad performances.

We tried to put a lot of comedy out there this year.

We tried to make people feel good, but it was really interesting just to have people's feedback be so immediate immediate of thank you, I needed this.

I had no idea how much I needed one hour to hear great music and see awesome dancing and just forget.

Forget about whatever was happening in their personal lives or, you know, politics or, you know anything in the media or, you know, they got to disconnect from their phones and social media and everything else, and just have an experience that was like immediate.

It felt very personal to them.

They felt like the dancers were performing for them.

So that was, that made me feel like, oh my gosh what we're doing is really, really valuable.

And it made me not want to quit.

- Well and did that surprise you?

I mean, did that feeling from the audience surprise you?

- I think this year just allowed people to see each other in different lights.

And so I think that people were more willing to let their guard down, you know, when talking and sharing more personal experience that they had immediately after a performance, which was pretty cool.

I don't know if I was so surprised as maybe honored, you know, honored that the audience has felt that connected to what we do because I love it.

I believe in what we do, Jody Cook believes in what we do.

So it just felt really nice to witness the receiving end, I guess, you know of our dancers performing, gifting it to the audience and then like, you know just seeing that moment where it comes together.

- Because let's be honest, it's so important for you guys as well.

I mean, it's so important for the audience to experience it but for you guys to be kept off a stage, for you to be kept away from an audience, that had to be painful.

And now hitting the Adler stage in the days ahead, it's a big deal.

- Yes.

I mean, truly this year I want to say we did more than 30 performances this year.

We didn't stop performing.

We sometimes had audience as small as 15 people in the audience, you know.

We followed whatever rules were out there that we needed to follow for safety.

So sometimes we performed to an audience of 15 but we were also remembering days where we'd be on the Adler theater stage and the place be packed, you know, with over a thousand.

So, you know, it's just nice.

It'll be nice to be back on stage and just remember where that feels like and, yeah.

Hope.

Hope for the future.

- Well said, hope for the future.

And let's talk about the other aspect of Ballet Quad Cities that a lot of people know about.

You've got amazing outreach programs.

I mean, you reach out to kids, you deal with reading, you deal with anti-bullying issues.

Tell me a little bit of what you have planned ahead when it comes to the outreach programs that you have for children, whether it's going to be this summer or into next school year.

- Well, we are hoping to be able to be present with students or individuals in the community in person as soon as possible.

We're planning that that will happen.

We don't know that it will.

But we're always formulating new outreach programs.

We had some pretty successful Dance Me A Story's.

This year where we take our books and we bring them to life.

And normally we do that in person with people in outreach situations, we put them online and we chose some pretty cool books that I feel like were really relevant.

One was, I'm not sure if we talked about this last time we were together, Ruby Finds a Worry.

It was one of the books we chose this past year.

And that kind of explains emotions that kids might feel that they don't yet have words for and help them identify what they're feeling and connecting to other people around them.

And of course, using dance and music to get those feelings out.

So we are, we're moving ahead.

And the next year we're picking new literature to bring to life with students.

We're making new partnerships in the community.

We're connecting with partners that we've had in the past.

We're hoping to get into more schools.

So we've got some cool things on the horizon.

- Courtney Lyon, artistic director of Ballet Quad Cities.

Tickets are now available for all of their performances.

Just go to BalletQuadCities.com.

(uplifting music) On the air, on the radio, on the web on your mobile device and streaming on your computer.

Thanks for taking some time to join us as we talk about the issues on The Cities.

- [Announcer] Wheelan-Pressly Funeral Home and Crematory, a proud supporter of WQPT, has been serving quad city families since 1889.

They now have livestream capabilities for viewing your loved one's funeral or memorial service.